The Rest of the Story

Today I have had enough of the doom and gloom in the humdrum daily news. So when I heard this story, I thought, “why not!”

Thirteen years ago in Ontario, Canada outside of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds hockey team ice rink a branch of the Canadian Red Cross had set up a table to help raise money for Haiti, and Juliette Lamour, then five years old,  and her sister Sophie were determined to help.

That was 2010 and the island nation of Haiti had just been ravaged by an earthquake. Aid organizations from across the world rushed to help the people of the obliterated country stabilize and recover.

The sisters upturned their big pink sharing piggy bank that day, out of which came $61.38. The sisters gave it all to the Canadian Red Cross for Haitian people.

I can almost hear the murmuring of “that’s nice, two compassionate sisters giving all of their piggy bank to charity”, but que sera, sera. However, now fast forward to last week, thirteen years later, for what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.”

Juliette told the local paper, Soo Today, that she was on her way to bring her grandfather some ice cream.

“I called him on the phone asking what kind of ice cream he wanted,” she recalled. “And he said to me: ‘You just turned 18, go buy a lotto ticket, test your luck.’ So I did.” Lamour had just recently turned 18, the legal age to buy lottery tickets in Ontario.

Lamour stopped at the Circle K at Pine and McNabb. “I got to the corner store and I’m in my car — and I didn’t know how to buy it,” she laughed. “So I had to call my dad. I said: ‘Dad, Grandpa wants me to buy a ticket. How do I do it?’ He’s like: ‘Oh, just go inside and get a QuickPick.’ ”

Now for the rest of the story:

Juliette Lamour won the lottery … $48 million … on her first and only ticket purchase!!

The suggestion that her generosity, thirteen years prior, has been rewarded is impossible to resist making.

2/20/23

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